D&G Lemon Print Suitcases
by thanatophilia
Summary: In this world, feelings just get in the way. Please, somebody shoot me.
1. Placing An Order For

**_D&G_ LEMON PRINT SUITCASES**

**  
Chapter 1 – PLACING AN ORDER FOR;**

Neku had chosen at a very young age to starve rather than suck cock. He could have made it as a corner boy. He was a cute kid with a lean wiry body and striking features, eyes the color of a rainy sky shaded over by a burnt-orange mop of hair. It was a classic situation: boy on the street who looked like he could use a hand out, but he might as well do something to deserve it while he was there. Neku said no, didn't bother leading them on into some alley to steal their wallet or kick them in the nuts. Just said no, flat and simple, set more than a few Johns on edge, made them call him an ungrateful brat. A couple of them took swings at him, only a rare few actually hit him. He was a fast boy.

And a hungry boy. In the summer, this wasn't so bad. Heat stroke made you less hungry, made you sort of giddy and numb to pain and he could spend a whole day in a patch of sunshine in the park and just soak up sun-vitamins until he was full.

In the winter, he dragged himself from hothouse to shelter to soup kitchen to library just to be in out of the cold. He read a lot in the winter.

Neku chose to be lonely rather than suck cock. This was a more convoluted situation where people offered him pity and affection a passing guilt that a child had to live like this. Neku hated them. Hated their kindness and their cooing worry.

If they had wanted to save him, they should have done it years ago, before he'd learned that feelings just got in the way in this world. He didn't trust them, didn't trust anyone, and mistrusted even the idea of society. He had no place in it.

So when he turned sixteen, approximately, he sucked just enough cock _(just the right cocks)_ to get a new birth certificate, social security number, and a driver's license. It wasn't hard to meet the bad men on the streets. They were really looking for immigrants, but a desperate boy was welcome too, if he could give them what they wanted. It was too easy.

He wouldn't be nobody anymore. He could get a job and a bank account, could buy a car and rent an apartment on a decent side of town. As long as he kept his head down it would be perfect. He'd already been alone for this long, what would the rest of his life matter?

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Yoshiya Kiryu, self-proclaimed god of all fashion editors, picked him up in the mall. Josh had been wandering around asking people if they wanted to be models, making people nervous about rape and abduction. When he'd lingered too long in front of Jupiter, the manager had told Neku to get rid of him.

Neku had considered giving him the two fingered salute, but every time he had to put his stolen social security number out into the open was a chance for someone to notice that it didn't belong to him. He needed this job, didn't want to get fired. So he trotted himself out and tapped the guy on the shoulder and told him to get lost.

Joshua smiled at him. He was too skinny and too pale and his pale eyes were always smiling like there was a joke that no one else was getting, the poor ignorant fools. His hair was a soft mousy blond, almost grey in the poor fluorescent lighting. His smile quirked to one side in the delicate set of his jaw.

"You've got a nice face," the man noted. "An ugly haircut, but your face is nice," he murmured, doing that obnoxious hair twirling thing that would one day hypnotize Neku into—

"Whatever," Neku responded bluntly. "You're freaking people out, get lost." He made an impatient shooing motion, coupled with a scowl that could have peeled paint.

"But I want you," Joshua replied, something almost sulky in his voice. "I've spent all day looking at vapid creatures and posturing fools. You're the one I want."

He reached out to touch Neku, but Neku slapped his hand away still scowling. He'd chosen to starve for fifteen years rather than suck cock. The man's overtures were making him feel sick and angry.

"Get out of here," he repeated darkly.

Joshua shrugged, offering a long suffering sigh. He raised the camera around his neck and took a picture.

"I'm not giving up on you, darling," he laughed, waving as he strolled away.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Roxas threw the man in his life out of his apartment the same day Joshua finally convinced Neku to come work as his model.

Over the course of the morning, Roxas packed up all the other man's shit in a rage in order to toss all of it, and the man in question, out on the curb. There had been a lot of reasons for it. Mostly involving infidelities and freeloading and lying and fights about stupid little things. They'd always fought, but that was _inevitable_ when someone like Roxas was involved: confident, straight-forward, and as impatient as an angry dog. They'd always made up though and it had taken entirely too long for them _both_ to realize what a bad habit this relationship was.

Roxas was a professional photographer—(looked the part most heinously in his understated clothing and messy hair, pale skin and eyes sunken from too much time in the darkroom)—with his star only on the rise. The guy he threw out was… nothing.

They'd gotten together because once upon a time he'd admired Roxas's work. They'd stayed together out of laziness and… The end had just been inevitable, just like Neku eventually giving in to that creeper's constant pestering had probably been inevitable too.

After their initial meeting in front of Jupiter's, the lithe man began courting Neku in earnest by having huge bouquets of flowers sent to the store, getting his phone number from the manager and calling him with offers for dinner at least twice a day. He would wait by Neku's car in the parking lot holding chocolates.

Neku hated him for it but honestly feared going to the police about the harassment. He wasn't exactly a citizen and his identity fraud was a much larger crime than Joshua's stalking habits.

It made him nervous to have Joshua snooping around in his life. Digging up little facts, first where he worked, then where he parked, then his cell number, then his address, his favorite restaurant. It seemed so _inevitable_ that he would stop being satisfied with all that mundane information when it wasn't getting him anywhere. He might go scavenging into Neku Sakuraba's credit history and high school records where he wouldn't actually _find_ any of those things, just a trail of lies.

So Neku agreed. Neku agreed and halfway across town, Roxas shouted down from his fire escape,

"Get a fucking job, you useless asshole!"

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Joshua moved Neku into a hotel room on the nice side of town. Neku didn't feel so much dazzled by the large room as overwhelmed. Was he really going to do this? He was really going to let Joshua take pictures of him? What the hell was he thinking?

But Joshua didn't take any pictures of him. He stayed and had dinner with Neku. Then he asked if Neku knew how to play War as he shuffled a deck of cards.

"Yeah," the kid answered hesitantly and took the half deck that Joshua gave him. They played for about half an hour, at which point Joshua announced _Jeopardy!_ was on and tuned the television to the proper channel. He knew a lot of the answers, Neku did too, and that seemed to amuse Joshua a lot.

"I'll come see you in the morning," he promised, when the show was over. "We'll go get your hair cut."

Neku nodded, surprised that his stalker was just leaving like that. When Joshua was gone, Neku tried getting into the bed, but he had trouble sleeping. Eventually, he got a few hours but it took him multiple brews to get the coffee as strong as he wanted it the next morning.

Joshua knocked on the door at about ten thirty. He let himself inside and joined Neku at the table. It really was a huge hotel room, classically decorated and with big windows. Joshua set down a box and took out some clean threads, very much like what Neku was already wearing, but in slightly more muted colors. High collar, loose fit on his body, no sleeves, and pants cut off at the knee.

"I brought you a gift," Joshua said with a smile.

Neku scowled at him. He wasn't going to get naked for him. "You're an asshole."

"Oh come on, Nekky," the man laughed, reaching out with his spindly fingers to tilt Neku's chin up. He watched the way the light caught the boy's eyes. "I'm just being nice."

"Don't call me that," Neku protested instantly, swatting his hand away. Yoshiya just smiled, pushing the clothes into his hands. Neku stared at them for a moment before he went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He returned in the new garb. It had been a long time since had worn clean clothes, new clothes, it felt nice.

"Very handsome," Joshua praised.

He took Neku downstairs to the car which drove them to his appointment. The stylist let him keep his messy hairstyle despite telling him he was only a few years behind the rest of the world. She just trimmed it and washed it and Neku wondered what the point was. Joshua assured him he was just being nice.

Neku didn't quite believe him.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

They repeated this two more times, going out to buy shoes one day and then to let Neku pick out a few more outfits the next. The nights were always the same though: dinner and then some two-person card game. Joshua displayed that he also had a fondness for Mille Borne and Rummy. They watched _Jeopardy!_.

On the third night, Joshua asked Neku how he knew so much. Neku replied that he didn't know. Joshua just nodded, glancing at the game show's credits, deciding it was time to go.

"Your first shoot is tomorrow, I'll come by in the morning to pick you up."

Neku nodded.

The man left and Neku still didn't sleep well, but when Joshua came back at ten thirty, he'd brought coffee. Good coffee, fancier than anything he'd ever had before, but strong too. Neku followed the smell of it to the car and drank quietly, apprehensively. It smelled _so_ good.

"I don't think I want to do this," he voiced as he watched the city in the windows. He hadn't spent much time on this end of town, people got offended when they saw homeless strays wandering around on their streets

Joshua glanced at him, blinking, looking very much like a surprised cat. His face was so dainty, Neku reflected, watching the way his eyes, gone wide and grey, seemed to take up his entire face.

"But I want you," the man said. He didn't seem to care that Neku winced away from what he inferred. "I do," he insisted. "You're a beautiful model. I think more people should see you."

The boy flushed, hating the words. "I don't believe you."

He did not like it when Joshua smiled at him secretively. "I'll prove it, but you have to let me."

… And Neku did. It was intoxicating to think someone thought he had worth. He was drawn in by Joshua's polite manner and smiles. It meant something to him that Joshua was so careful about not trying to change him. Neku could have his own clothes, eat his own food, and do anything he wanted with his hair: just as long as he was himself. Just as long as he let Joshua arrange the shoots. Joshua liked him for himself, didn't think he was worthless, and didn't think he was a freak.

Joshua rewarded him for being himself by having dinner with him. Neku never admitted how much that meant to him. Joshua taught him how to play bezique, Écarté, cuarenta and a host of other two player card games. He said they came from all over the world, Neku even allowed himself to fantasize briefly about seeing all the places Joshua talked about.

However, over the first few months of modeling, one of Joshua's favorite topics to discuss while playing cards was the prospect of Neku moving in with him. Neku refused this idea flatly, at first.

What wore him down—warmed him to the idea, he thought—was that damn hair twirling. He would see Joshua doing it from across sets, or across the table. The motion hypnotized him, and Joshua would smile at him and maybe Neku made the mistake of flattering himself into thinking that it meant Joshua was thinking of him.

About the fifteenth time Joshua invited him to move in, Neku accepted.

Joshua smiled at him in response, reaching out with those elegant fingers to touch Neku's face and Neku didn't push him away.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Roxas technically met the kid while Neku was still doing that weird shit with the fashion editor. Roxas had tried working with Yoshiya Kiryu all of once and had found the man so insufferable that he'd flipped him off and exited stage right.

Now, Roxas didn't generally consider himself one of those touchy photographers who had to defend the artistic integrity of every shot, even when there wasn't any to be found. However, Kiryu's flirtatious interjections about his style and handling had quickly gotten the better of him.

That was ancient history though. The kid was the issue. He met Neku at a party. Not too fancy of a party, some city art thing that Roxas had helped to sponsor because his best friend had asked him to.

Best friend in question: Axel, _artiste_ extraordinaire, sporting too-long red hair and too-bright green eyes, was bounding with excitement, wandering around shaking hands with people and sometimes migrating back towards where Roxas was smoking in a corner. Roxas wasn't really interested in socializing, never really had been and he wore the camera around his neck like a charm to ward off evil spirits. Axel had never taken the other man's resistance to friendship very seriously.

"Roxas. You have no idea how awesome this is," he occasionally babbled and Roxas waved him away with a subdued smile. Axel had put together the show; half the art was his, Roxas could spot them on the walls: big bold paintings and inks, lurking with more delicate shadow monsters and strangely feminine symbolism cast into the corners. The rest was work he'd gathered up, stuff he was personally vouching for. Roxas didn't know half of them, hadn't minded helping Axel get the show up anyway.

Roxas had spotted Kiryu from across the room as soon as the man had entered. It was certainly no industry party and why he was there was suspect, but Roxas had immediately resolved not to get any closer to him lest he be tempted to punch the guy's teeth out. It really wasn't the best idea to have such a bad relationship with such an influential guy, but Roxas was unrelenting in his disdain for Kiryu's smirking voice and high and mighty attitude.

This, however, did not stop him from looking at the man's date. Neku Sakuraba. He'd been on three covers in the past month, and it would have been hard to forget that surly expression of his even if he hadn't. The kid was Yoshiya Kiryu's favorite, and his lanky figure and well defined features made it clear why.

Neku looked even less excited to be here than Roxas did and was plainly not listening to a word his patron was saying. Roxas watched as Axel walked up to them and exchanged greetings, shook hands with Yoshiya. He tried the same trick with Neku but the kid simply broke away from both of them and wandered off.

Kiryu excused it with a laugh and Roxas watched curiously. He found it interesting that someone who spent so much time with the man found him just as irritating as Roxas did. He followed after the kid.

He'd heard that Neku was eighteen, but he didn't really look it. He was shorter than Roxas and Roxas was a rousing 5'6. That was about all anyone heard about Neku though, he was not subject to the same in-depth probing that some models suffered through in order to try and make themselves relevant. The kid was viciously private and used his status as Yoshiya's favorite to keep the world away. He was rarely seen without too-pale-too-thin Kiryu at his side.

Roxas wondered which had come first: the fucking or the photographing. He didn't think it would be too polite to ask, so he settled with a hello.

"Get your smoke out of my face," Neku replied first and foremost, which made Roxas bare his teeth, but he reconsidered being too snide and just dropped the fag into his champagne glass.

"Better?" he wondered dryly.

The kid looked at him, his perfect brows pinched at the center in the most annoyed expression Roxas had ever seen on someone's face at so little provocation.

"You could get lost too," Neku replied.

Roxas raised an eyebrow. Well then. "I just wasted my drink and my smoke on you, can I get a hello?"

Neku made a short hissing sound from between his teeth and walked away from him. Roxas thought about throwing his glass of champagne at his retreating back, but wasn't really one to make a scene. He could take being brushed off.

Axel sidled up beside him curiously. "You getting desperate to be dogging after such a sour piece of ass?"

Roxas turned a withering stare onto his friend. He could hear what Axel was really asking, he wasn't such a roundabout sneaky bastard as he thought. He hadn't been dating since he'd thrown the last one out on his ass, had been holed up in his darkroom for months instead. What was it people said? Married to his career? He was okay with that.

"I am not getting desperate. I can live without sex," he replied, clearly intimating that his best friend was a slut for bringing it up. If he'd wanted it, he could have gotten it. Models were notorious for their low self-esteem and conniving relationships.

"So you don't miss him, at all?" Axel wondered curiously. Only best friends got to ask invasive questions like that.

"Shut up, Axel," Roxas noted dryly.

Axel shrugged dramatically. "The two of you, like two lemons in a fucking bushel."

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Roxas met Neku again shortly after Yoshiya dropped the kid for a towering Swedish woman with green eyes. To his credit, Neku had managed to keep the editor's attention for two years, which was two years longer than most of Kiryu's vapid flings.

It had already been in the gossip rags for a week that the infamous and influential Yoshiya Kiryu had a new flame by the time Roxas found the kid (not a kid, if he was eighteen then, he was twenty now) being harassed at a bus stop. That was the trouble with being a model, Roxas reflected, people recognized your face. He liked it better behind the camera, thank you for asking.

Roxas could clearly hear a man asking Neku if he wanted to suck his dick. Something very similar to fury flashed across Sakuraba's face and he was up and wheeling for a punch before Roxas could really properly blink. It quickly became clear that Neku also had no intention of stopping and Roxas pushed himself into a jog to drag the kid back before someone had to call the police.

"Fuck," Neku burst out, raging, kicking at Roxas's grip around his waist. "Get off me! Want your cock sucked, asshole? I'll give you fucking—"

"Whoa!" Roxas revised, pulling that struggling body away with him, shoving him in the backdoor of a restaurant where they were stared at with consternation by the workers, but where Neku Sakuraba calmed down instantly. It didn't seem like he was much for making a scene anymore.

He stood there in his top of the line clothes with blood on his knuckle, furious hurt and anger in his expression. His hair was a mess, like he'd been hacking at it with a pocketknife or something. Roxas also noticed he didn't have on any shoes.

"You all right?" he wondered absentmindedly, knowing the answer and also aware of some uptight restaurant manager coming to tell them to get out of the staff area.

Neku swallowed raggedly, then inhaled and straightened up like nothing had happened. He started to push back out onto the street and Roxas caught him by the wrist despite his better judgment.

"Get the fuck off me," Neku repeated coldly. He didn't know who the hell this guy was, just some run of the mill blue-eyed blond who needed to stop touching him.

"Shut up," Roxas replied with equal chill, yanking Neku back inside and turning to face the manager. "Sorry, uh, look, is there a table available?" He pulled out his wallet quickly and counted out a sufficient bribe to silence complaint. It wasn't something he was used to doing, he tried to stay out of the floodlights, but when you had a best friend like Axel—all smart mouth and offense; Roxas swore that redheads only lived to cause trouble—it was _inevitable_.

The manager recounted the bills with pleasure and graciously led them to a little corner booth. Roxas had to drag his unwilling companion along and then had to shove him down into the booth itself, but they made pushed a menu under the kid's nose and told him to order something, but Neku declined stubbornly. So Roxas ordered coffee for the both of them.

"You were really out of control," Roxas noted, taking out a cigarette. Neku wrinkled his nose at the sight. Roxas didn't care.

"It's none of your business, asshole," the kid answered with acidity.

"Get over yourself," Roxas responded flatly, turning a deadpan stare towards the kid. As if he was the only person to ever get dumped. "Everyone and their mother knows you're out on your ass, why go and make it worse with a stunt like that?"

Neku's expression turned murderous. All his distinct lines, sharp little jaw and high cheek bones, the glitter of his concrete-blue eyes and even the jagged disarray of his hair all drew tight and angry.

He actually stood up and started to leave but the waiter approached with their drinks, crowding him back into the booth. Neku huddled sulkily against the plastic upholstery.

"It wasn't a stunt," he eventually growled.

Sighing, Roxas motioned the waiter away, he'd been lingering too close trying to hear what they were talking about, probably hoping to make a buck with some rag magazine for the scoop on what Neku Sakuraba was doing without Kiryu.

"Fine, it wasn't a stunt," he agreed, flicking his cigarette and slurping at the too hot coffee in the same motion. He rolled his eyes "It just looked like one. What are you doing now?"

"Do I know you?" Neku asked bluntly.

"Yeah," Roxas answered just as flatly. "We've met before. I'm a photographer, you're a model. I don't work with Kiryu because he's a bastard, you fucked him for reasons I can't even—"

"_Shut up_," the kid snapped. He seemed to be trying to hold his head up and cover his face with his hand, his elbow jutting against the tabletop.

Roxas did. He remembered. What it was like to be with someone for years and then realize they just weren't a part of your life. He'd done the tossing, but… he remembered and he shut up.

"Sorry," he sighed, knowing he'd let his annoyance get the better of him. He'd never really been that great at being careful of other people and Neku was damn good at inciting ire. "But my question still stands. What are you going to do now?"

Neku stirred his coffee miserably before picking up the cup and throwing it back the same way another man might have thrown back a shot.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I. Didn't want any of the things he'd bought me. I don't even really want the money anymore."

Roxas heard this with sadness. "Rethink the money, kid. You like modeling?"

Anger flashed like lightning in Neku's features again. "I'm not a kid," he retorted sharply, but calmed down again. "And it isn't really about liking modeling. Either someone else picks me up or I have to move somewhere where the people at the bus stop won't recognize me."

There was silence between them for a moment. Neku stewed in his misfortunes, found them impossibly inevitable. Who would want some street kid like him for anything but sucking cock? He'd been so stupid. He'd been _so_ stupid letting Joshua use him like that. And here he was on the street again, in this precarious position with nowhere to go.

Roxas had other things to consider. "I'll do it," he announced after a moment. Neku looked at him funny, not knowing what he was talking about. "I'll pick you up as a model. I'll have to hire a stylist, but I can do it if I drop Axel."

"Who is Axel?" Neku wondered warily. "And why would I want to be your model?"

"We met at his exhibit," Roxas supplied darkly and Neku suddenly had the decency to look embarrassed. Good, Roxas thought with satisfaction before continuing. "And you want to be my model because everyone knows I think your ex is a dick."

He watched Neku grit his teeth. "That's the stupidest reason I've ever heard."

"No it isn't," Roxas smiled. He had a disarmingly nice smile, unguarded, no shred of self-consciousness in his features. When you weren't the one in the picture, it didn't matter what you looked like.

Neku didn't trust him, but… at the moment? He didn't have anything better planned, just had bare feet wiggling against the floor and no place to go home to.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Axel took it surprisingly well when Roxas told him what was going on. Apparently, he had enough pieces being bought up and displayed that he would be all right. He made a joke about getting a second job at the laundromat under his flat. He was actually more concerned for Roxas.

"So, are you seriously trying to tell me you're trying to start up a modeling agency with one model?" he asked.

Roxas shook his head as he got up to get another cup of coffee. They were in his studio; where he was now letting Neku crash on his couch. It was a good thing Roxas wasn't in the dating field. Neku would have been just too much fun to explain. _Sorry, can't take you home with me, I've got a fucked up model on my sofa._

He'd sent the kid in question and the fashion rep he'd booked out to score some clothes. Her name was Shiki, she'd talked a lot before taking Roxas's credit card and Neku out shopping. It was just him and Axel, for now.

"I'm saying he was never with an agency. Kiryu picked him up, Kiryu dressed him up, Kiryu dictated all the shots of him. We're just… reintroducing him to other people who can get him work."

Axel was smoking again, said he'd quit three weeks ago, but that never held. He tilted his head as he exhaled. "Why the charity? Two years ago he blows us both off—"

"He blows everyone off," Roxas interrupted perfunctorily. Axel waved a dismissive hand.

"_He blows us off_, and as soon as Kiryu drops him you want to be his hero?"

Roxas hesitated. He hadn't gotten Neku to talk much, but he had gotten the story of how his modeling career had started. Yoshiya had pushed and for reasons Roxas hadn't figured out yet, Neku had caved in to it. Now thousands of strangers knew his face. How was he supposed to go back to working in the mall after something like that?

"Kiryu is a dick," Roxas voiced confidently. "I'll do my good deed for the day and when the rags come sniffing after Neku, I'll remind them of that fact."

"Roxas," Axel sighed. "This sounds like a terrible idea." Although it was usually Axel who held the corner market on bad ideas, it was Roxas who tended to fuck up his life with them. Obsessive projects, bad investments, loser boyfriends. Axel tried to keep his bread and butter separate from his wacky ideas. Roxas had no such compunction, stubborn little bastard that he was.

They didn't get much further in their conversation, because Neku and little Miss Shiki Misaki came in through the front door. She had a strange look to her, a little understated and not stylish in and of herself, she had black plastic rimmed glasses and modest black hair, looking almost secretarial. But Roxas knew better. He'd met her while working with designer 'Marluxia' last year; he'd liked her taste and traded numbers with her.

"Give me a call if you get tired of being his assistant," he'd offered with a good natured smile. She'd flushed. "I'll call you up with some work of your own now and then, okay?"

Shiki looked pleased with herself now. While Neku, on the other hand, just looked aggravated, but Roxas was beginning to see that was his normal everyday state. Despite all this, he noticed Neku was the one carrying the shopping bags. So he had a couple of gentlemanly bones in his body after all. How surprising.

Neku disappeared immediately into the bathroom and shut the door. Shiki glanced at them, then to the door, and then came to greet Axel, who she did not know personally, but liked professionally.

Axel laughed at this. "Nice to meet you too."

Shiki glanced back at the bathroom. Neku had left the bags outside the door, she wasn't surprised. "Do you want to see what we bought?" she wondered, something occurred to her and she fumbled out Roxas's credit card, returning it to him.

"On Neku, preferably," Roxas murmured, also eyeing the door. He'd been letting Neku stay here, slowly trying to convince the kid to touch the money he'd earned while under Kiryu's wing, but Neku remained unmoved on that subject and swore he would sleep in the street before he spent a dime of it.

So instead he was living on Roxas's couch. The cohabitation had been interesting the past few days. The kid woke up earlier than anyone had the right to and made coffee so strong that it made Roxas jitter. The pot he had been drinking with Axel was at least half the strength. The kid was strange; there was no doubt about that.

"I'll. Try to get him out," Shiki offered, the expression on her face said she was good at wheedling Neku, but that he might grumble a bit first.

Axel wasn't surprised.

* * *

**Standard Disclaimers.**


	2. Please Somebody Shoot Me

**Chapter 2  
PLEASE SOMEBODY SHOOT ME**

It took about a week for Roxas to get everything he wanted for his first set with Neku. What he really wanted to do was get as many varied shots as he could to build the kid's portfolio. Shiki was a huge amount of help arranging things and Roxas commended her accordingly.

"You were wasted on Marluxia," he murmured, fiddling with his lenses.

Shiki hesitated. Roxas was kind of a weird guy. Not as weird as Neku, who never said anything except to bite and scratch, but he was still pretty strange. He had an interesting sense of lighting and aesthetic and the preternatural attachment to his camera that suggested he would sooner jump off a bridge to save it than he would for another person. That was why the compliments seemed so strange.

"You… really think I do all right?"

Roxas turned to her, flashed her that unguarded smile that snuck up on him sometimes. "Yeah, just look at that setup."

He jerked his head in Neku's direction. The kid was in something red and sleeveless, buttoned at the center to make a nice hourglass that was wider at the top and closer fit around his waist. Neku seemed discomfited by the coppery stretch of hair up to his navel and had been brave enough to suggest shaving it _(Joshua had always--)_, but Shiki had told him absolutely not and Roxas had backed her up on it.

The dark jeans were tight and ended just below the knee in a clean hem, negating the skater boy look and just leaving them with Neku.

"He needs something on his ankle," Shiki noted looking at him. Roxas had specifically asked Neku be barefoot, but Shiki could see there was too much symmetry. She went to rummage through the bags, held up several different chains and weaves.

Roxas pointed to the thin silky black ribbon and Shiki scurried to get it around Neku's right ankle. This seemed to vex the boy even more and he tried to do it himself, but Shiki pushed him back firmly. She wanted the two ends to lay over each other flatly, like a tie, and knew Neku would just knot it like a bow.

Neku raked a hand back through his newly shorn hair impatiently. He'd admitted to hacking it off, not citing any reason in particular but Roxas took note of the pain in his expression as he avoided the issue. He hadn't pushed, just taken the kid to Demyx and gotten it fixed up. It was a little more faux hawk than Neku strictly appreciated, but Roxas liked it, thought it made him look like a cockatoo with the way the longest spikes drooped across his forehead.

Shiki stepped back to look at him then. She flattened the collar of his shirt, put her hands under his jaw on both sides and made him sit up straight so she could be sure everything was how she wanted it. Neku grumbled at her, she paid no mind.

"Can I pierce your ears tomorrow?" she asked, tilting her head, this time fussing with the line of his waistband.

"No."

"We'll pierce your ears tomorrow…" she mused.

"_No_," Neku repeated, annoyed.

"He's ready!" Shiki called to Roxas, scampering out of the way. "We'll get his ears pierced tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," Roxas agreed, eyeing the furniture he'd had brought in. It was all elegant and antique dark wood stuff. The pillows and carpet were brocade; the sofa upholstery was navy blue. He instructed Roxas to sit on the curled arm of the right side of the couch, naked feet on the dark cushions. He set an embroidered pillow on the other end, it looked like there was a unicorn and an elephant on it, gray elephant trunk twined around a golden unicorn horn. On the coffee table there was a small gleaming bowl with crimson fish flitting back and forth vibrantly.

Roxas adjusted the lights.

"Look up, hands clasped in your lap," he instructed at first. He snapped a couple that way before he hesitantly coached Neku on his expression.

Neku had worked with Kiryu alone for two years. Kiryu had dressed him, posed him, talked him through what the photographers wanted in a way that wouldn't make Neku _snap_ and now Roxas had to learn that language, speak it in a way that would make Neku— No, he was scowling again and Roxas eased back. If he hadn't been behind his camera, he may have become frustrated, but there was a peace to him when he got his hands on the instrument. He could control this tiny little world he'd built; he could draw out all its secret feelings and colors. Even if Neku didn't do what he wanted, there was still plenty enough to instill in the image. Even Neku's anger would do, there was something to feel and see here.

"Pretend it's raining," Roxas called absentmindedly, motioning for someone to adjust his lights, forgetting that no one else was there to do it. Why had he decided to do this alone? Oh yeah because he was using up his money on Neku and Shiki and sets. He left the camera with reluctance and moved the lights himself.

Neku made an incredulous face, but took a deep breath and did what was asked of him, letting something softer melt onto his features. Roxas liked the way his hands fell open in his lap like a bird, liked the almond shaped lines of his eyes. Liked the way the gray color of his irises was a subtle glitter amongst the dark colors and snatches of red.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

They worked in that studio for about three days, moving around bits of furniture, doing a few things with natural light that Roxas had been wanting to try but had never gotten permission to waste time with.

Shiki had an inexhaustible number of outfits, which Roxas found impressive considering the budget he had given her for clothes. They even brought Axel in on the last day to paint an intricate Victorian collar over Neku's shoulders, neck, and the underside of his jaw. Shiki accented this with an edging of white lace; offset the wholesome femininity of the image with the barbell scaffold she'd gotten put through the upper cartilage of his left ear.

Neku protested all of this as he sat in his black tank top. He especially protested the dots of green paint Roxas personally put at the corner of each eye, but he was ignored and he posed pointedly and dutifully when Roxas began taking shots.

Axel took them all out for drinks when this was done, or tried to. Neku refused to come and instead went back to the apartment to wash off all the paint. Roxas offered to get him a cab, but Neku turned him down him curtly and Roxas rolled his eyes. No one was going to fight the kid over acts of kindness, even if Shiki kind of looked like she wanted to.

Roxas took Shiki and Axel out for drinks instead and called Demyx along the way and they had a good time. Shiki and Axel mostly talked about his paintings and Roxas got to hear the story about Axel lighting his flat on fire for the _millionth_ time in their long friendship. Demyx was more interested in how Roxas had managed to scoop Neku up so quickly. This was tersely attributed to being in the right place at the right time and left at that.

Neku was not brought up again until the end of the night, after Axel and Demyx had headed for their end of town and Shiki and Roxas had headed for theirs.

"Roxas, uh, sir?" Shiki wondered. She was about the same age as Neku, which was too young to drink. She'd had to get up a different kind of courage for this. She had enjoyed Roxas's appreciation for her work thus far, and feared losing it by asking stupid questions but she forged ahead. "What do you actually know about Neku?"

The older man stopped walking and sighed, scratching a hand back through his scruffy blond hair. He stayed behind the camera, rarely worried about how good his hair or clothes looked, didn't realize how striking he was; his image so distant and wild and uncaring.

"Not much," he admitted. "You can see for yourself that he isn't much of a talker."

Shiki nodded, her mouth twitching to the side as she considered something. "He doesn't talk about Mr. Kiryu."

Roxas's expression softened from the irritation that Neku inspired, taking in the compassionate tone of her voice. Neku didn't deserve half of what all of them were giving him. But maybe there was still a reason for it.

"No," Roxas agreed. "I don't think he does. I don't think I would either if I were him." Shiki looked at him curiously and he knew he would have to explain himself. "All I got out of Neku is that Kiryu scouted him downtown and then pressured him into being his model. Then dropped him for something older and with tits, but we all know that part."

Shiki flushed slightly at what he said. "And they were…?"

"They were together," Roxas filled in for her. He hoped he wasn't reading her right, because Neku would give her nothing but heartache, he was sure. "I don't think Neku is going to be making that mistake again for a long time."

She chewed on her bottom lip and nodded.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

When Roxas got back to the apartment, he wasn't sure whether to be surprised or not that Neku was still awake. He was upright with the pillow Roxas had given him hugged between his knees and his arms, his chin resting on it. There was something on TV that he was watching intently, something gory, there was a woman screaming. The thing that was really odd was that there was music playing at the same time, sounded like the Beastie Boys.

Roxas stood watching from across the room for a moment before he came back to himself. He dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and left his shoes at the door. He wanted to start going over his prints pretty much immediately but…

"You think this is going to work, Neku?"

The kid turned to look at him slowly, loathe to drag his eyes away from the screen. His expression was slightly pouting, like a child who'd been asked to stop playing video games and take out the trash.

"I told you it was a stupid idea from the start," he responded, lowering his eyes.

Exasperated by his never-ending bullshit, Roxas replied, "The rest of us don't feel that way and if you talk about it like that in front of Shiki I'm going to beat the shit out of you."

Neku rose to that challenge, sitting up straighter and abandoning the pillow. "Fuck you," he responded, it was one of his favorites and was quickly losing its impact on Roxas after living together for several weeks. "I didn't ask any of you to do this. You took it into your own damn head that I needed your help."

"You're right, you wouldn't need our help if you'd take the money you earned and actually use it," he noted. This had been a source of contention since they had met on the street. It had begun with Roxas being good natured, trying to get the kid to _take care of himself_, but had evolved into another example of Neku's stubbornness and selfish reasoning. It also made Neku furious and Roxas knew that when he said it now.

"I'm not touching that damn money. I don't suck cock for cash and I don't need your help!" This burst out of the kid cleanly, with such eloquent vehemence that he could hardly have been conscious of what he was saying beforehand.

He was clearly taken aback by himself afterwards and… Roxas was too. He approached the couch, because he was seeing the kid in Neku and he was seeing the pain. Neku had made it all too clear how he felt being one of Kiryu's abandoned projects. How he'd thought things had been between Yoshiya and him and how utterly _wrong_ the man had proven him to be.

"Hey," Roxas tried awkwardly, not used to comforting people but thinking that if anyone needed it, it was Neku. "All right. You don't need my help. But it wouldn't kill you to not be such an asshole."

Neku hung his head. "I don't need anyone," he voiced pitifully.

Roxas stared at him, raked a hand back through his hair. What the hell was he gonna do with this kid?

"Yeah, okay," he agreed after a moment. "I'm gonna go start in on my reels, because if this project fails I've wasted a huge amount of money on you."

Neku winced, winced again when Roxas shut the door to the darkroom behind him and then… composed himself, turning back to the movie silently.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Roxas spent the next three days in his darkroom without emerging. Neku didn't leave the apartment on his own even once. Axel would stop by though, he said he knew how Roxas liked to work and that he'd starve if nobody looked out for him.

He observed the look of curiosity on Neku's face, saw it in the forced nonchalance of his shoulders that he was wondering how someone as _capable_ as Roxas could need looking after. See, Axel was a sneakier bastard than anyone gave him credit for.

He made some coffee and some sandwiches and knocked on the door of the creature's den. He waited patiently while Roxas finished what he was doing. Neku could hear it when the older man came through the dark rubber curtain that helped keep the light out and then Roxas appeared, blinking owlishly. He never quite stepped out of the darkroom, just took what Axel offered him, asked what time it was, and then disappeared again.

Axel lingered then, looking at Neku who was listening through all of Roxas's CDs and the television at the same time. Axel knew that Neku was currently listening to Roxas's copy of _Synchronicity_, but had no idea what movie he was watching. It looked old, and like Robert Redford was getting the crap beaten out of him.

Considering carefully, Axel went and grabbed two cups of coffee before approaching the kid. He lowered it down into his hands from behind him wondering, "What are you watching?"

"I don't know," Neku replied distantly, taking the coffee without a thank you and raising it to his lips like a sleepwalker. "But they drugged the horse."

Axel nodded and sat down at the kitchen table to watch it with him. He thought about talking to the kid, but settled for keeping reconnaissance. The CD ended before the movie and Neku got up and switched it to Rob Zombie which was exactly as incongruous to the movie as The Police had been, if not more so.

Kid was weird.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Roxas loved photography. He'd always felt like he was watching the world from somewhere far away, reacting on secondhand information. That was how he felt inside and the camera just made it real. It was so much easier to see through the lenses, to be able to go back and look for things he'd missed.

Neku looked lonely in every picture, even the one Roxas had convinced him to smile for. The notion seemed especially prevalent in the playful candids Roxas had taken of Neku and Shiki. Roxas understood. He recalled what Neku had shouted, that he didn't suck cock for money. He saw that in Neku too, saw the shame burned into his skin.

Neku was a fucking beautiful model though. Roxas knew why Kiryu had wanted him so badly. The harder Neku tried to be unfriendly the more his skin glowed, the more his harsh expression fitted into the shape of his face. The brighter his eyes shined. His body was lean and athletic, almost too typical, except for the definition in his arms and his calves. Roxas wondered if Kiryu had gotten him to work out, or if that was just Neku, always doing things for himself, always running..

Roxas hung up another sample with a bemused sigh. As a photograph, Neku was so much more charming than the real thing.

He called Shiki and Axel in when he'd selected his shots. The three of them spent hours arranging and rearranging them against backboards, accenting them with proposed fonts and beads and colors.

Neku watched a movie about criminals saving the world and listened to a Joni Mitchell album Shiki had brought for him and an Eagles album he took from Roxas's collection.

He heard Roxas complimenting Shiki again, heard her hesitate under his praise and… actually got up to see what she'd done. He appeared at her elbow and peaked. This surprised her and she flushed darkly, moving aside so he could see how she'd arranged the page. She had a flare for angles and colors, and he tilted his head eyeing it in silence.

"I didn't know I looked like that," he said.

Axel made a stifled laughing sound and Roxas's brow furrowed.

"Yeah, well, maybe you'll start listening to me," the blonde offered dryly.

Neku looked up and narrowed his eyes at the man before going back to the couch. Axel continued to laugh. Roxas told him to shut up.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

They sent Shiki's favorite page into _Janicé_ where they fully expected Roxas's cousin Naminé to put in a good word for it. They sent Axel's contribution to _Isanart_ after he'd added his trademark shadow beasts to one of the images of Roxas with the painted collar. He'd also done something fascinating to the boy's eye with some ink and had drawn scritchy white flowers tumbling from between his lips.

Roxas took a collage of several different days and made a composite that he sent to one of the photography journals that had commissioned him for a spread. The rest were simply shipped off as samples to anyone Roxas could think of. Someone contacted Roxas within days wanting to talk to Neku, wanting to ask him how it felt being the center of so much attention after so recently being dropped. Word spread fast when everyone was listening for it.

At first, Roxas was actually hesitant to arrange the meeting. Neku had told him Yoshiya had always been present for these magazine interviews. So Roxas knew he had always been there to keep Neku in check and wasn't entirely sure how Neku would hold up given free reign.

Rather than dwell unnecessarily, he went and asked him. Neku was on the couch watching _Pulp Fiction_, it was on mute while something Roxas didn't even recognize screamed out of his stereo. Demyx—one man: part hair-dresser part rock-star—gave him a lot of weird shit that he sometimes just filed away to never be listened to. Apparently Neku was more interested than he was.

"Someone from one of the gossip 'zines wants to talk to you," he offered. "Do you even want to meet them, and can you control your mouth if you do?"

Neku gave him that look, the same irritable look that he tended to respond to most things with. Chin tucked down, mouth frowning, eyes cold. He didn't reply immediately, looked almost nervous with his teeth grit against answering hastily.

"Is there any point?"

"It'd be good attention. It's just work." Roxas shrugged.

"Are you going to be there?"

Roxas almost didn't feel surprised. "They didn't ask for me, but I can be there if you need me to be." Neku bared his teeth and Roxas realized he'd worded that poorly and couldn't bring himself to care. "Knock that off," he snapped. "I'm not tiptoeing around you, Sakuraba. Do you want to do it or not?"

The kid lowered his eyes, glanced at the television where Uma was lying in her own vomit.

"Yeah," he murmured.

"All right," Roxas agreed, rankled. "I'll have them meet us here. Jesus."

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

Neku regretted agreeing to the interview as soon as the reporter and her cameraman appeared. He recognized Koki Kariya and Uzuki Yashiro on sight, they were hard to mistake. Uzuki was the pink-haired bitch with the needling laugh and too long fingernails. Koki was the lanky cameraman with the laidback attitude and cruel jokes. They were friends of Joshua's and Neku felt sick and angry just looking at them.

"Hello, Blue," Koki greeted, snapping pictures of him wickedly.

Redheads just lived to cause trouble, Roxas observed this with confused ire and nearly smacked the camera out of the man's hands, but refrained. That was begging for a lawsuit with these skuzzy gossip types. He also observed that Neku did not reply to the greeting, just turned his face away. He'd been better about his manners since he'd been in the apartment, there was something to mark there.

"Can I get either of you something to drink?" Roxas offered after introducing himself to them. The pair was obviously much less interested in him than they were in Neku. However, Uzuki agreed to coffee.

Thinking the kid might need it, Roxas brought him a cup as well. The four of them settled across each other at the kitchen table, Koki taking pictures and Uzuki settling herself primly, her little electronic recorder between them.

"So tell me, Nekky—" Neku glared at her for the nickname. "—how have you been holding up?"

"Fine," he managed to say through grit teeth.

Uzuki laughed. "I see we have Roxas here with us, he's made his opinion of Mr. Kiryu very clear over the past few years. Has he been a comfort to you?"

Roxas raised an eyebrow at her and spoke for himself. "Our relationship is strictly professional."

"Is it?" Uzuki wondered snidely. "He is staying in your apartment, after all. Who's to know?"

The volatile little model was rising to her bait. "Just because you're a slut doesn't mean—"

"Did you know," Koki interrupted, "that Joshua went with that woman to Barbados the day after you left?" Neku fell silent, so Kariya took that as an invitation to continue. "I guess not. Now, do you think, that maybe Mr. Roxas here could be considered a comfort in that he's kept you too busy to sit around crying over Josh?"

"I haven't been crying," Neku replied coldly from behind his coffee cup. He thought a moment before adding awkwardly. "But Roxas has. Given me new work to do."

This gave Uzuki pause. She carded her long nails through her rose colored hair, frowning. She knew she could twist that, make implications about Neku and Roxas's twisted sex life, because she _knew_ what Joshua had used the kid for.

She glanced at Kariya and he just shrugged. She forged on alone. "So your self-esteem has faired well despite being dropped by your patron?"

Neku nodded. "The team we put together is. Good."

"We've seen the flood of pictures, but for record's sake, who else is on this team?"

"Neku, myself, my colleagues Demyx and Axel, and Shiki Misaki," Roxas listed off, afraid Neku wouldn't remember Shiki's last name or even mention the other two at all.

Dissatisfied to find Neku so calm, Uzuki asked a few more painfully prying questions, mixed in with benign inquiries but she soon became bored and declared that was enough. Koki snapped a few more pictures, winked at the both of them, and followed his irritated companion out the door.

"They're going to make us look awful," Neku noted.

"You know them?" Roxas wondered, reclining in his chair. When Neku nodded, he very gently urged the kid to elaborate and much to his surprise, Neku did.

They were Kiryu's friends, they'd had an agreement with the designer not to smear Neku while they were together. It was clear that was void now and Roxas listened to the bitterness in Neku's voice with grief.

* * *

_D&G

* * *

_

The invitations to parties began coming in shortly thereafter. Neku attempted to refuse them, all of them, but the socialites quickly discovered that if they invited Roxas, Shiki, Axel, or Demyx along for the ride, they could get Neku to show up.

It was a curious game. Their obsession with Neku revolved around his aborted relationship with Yoshiya, their continued attention was fueled by the work he was doing with Roxas, and Roxas often cited networking opportunities as his main reason for making an appearance. He hated parties and crowds, which was hardly a secret.

However, if Neku was honest with himself, which he very rarely was, his biggest reason for refusing was the fear that one of these parties would be the stage for coming face to face with Joshua again and… He didn't know what that would mean. He didn't know if he would throw himself at Joshua's feet or his throat, if Joshua would look at him with any kind of regret or if he would even look at him at all.

So far it hadn't happened. So far, society had been polite enough to keep him away from the source of his pain. And Roxas was right when he called these parties work. Everyone cited in their team was experiencing career growth from it: Axel's weird paintings and Roxas's sharp photography to Shiki's impeccable dress-sense and Demyx's playful music and hairstyles. Everyone wanted their work. Everyone wanted to eat up all of Neku's pieces.

He was on three covers in a month again. Even Uzuki's horrible article about him couldn't curtail his story of triumph. Neku quailed before it. Found the more popular he became, the more he wanted to hide in Roxas's apartment and never leave.

* * *

**Standard Disclaimers.**


	3. Who Cares About That Anyway?

**Chapter 333 – WHO CARES ABOUT THAT ANYWAY?**

All of Neku's free time was spent in the apartment. Roxas could tell his reticence was more than just heartbreak. He could see in the pictures what a free spirit Neku was. He didn't want to keep himself locked up in the apartment, but there was something he was scared of outside. He was trying to drown out the world.

_ IN THIS WORLD FEELINGS JUST GET IN THE WAY, PLEASE SOMEBODY SHOOT ME_

Despite his curiosity, Roxas honestly didn't know how to ask the question. _Are you… hiding from something?_ Neku would never tell him.

So Roxas just let him hang around in the apartment. Neku didn't mind sleeping on the couch and he wasn't an obtrusive guest, he contributed more to paying the grocery bill than what he ate, which was little. He would clean up in the living room every morning. He would even take care of extra dishes.

He seemed to understand that if he wanted to stay he had to make it so Roxas wouldn't want to kick him out. His tongue was as acerbic as ever, but even that was lessening as they learned what made the other tick. Wasn't it Camus who said happiness was inevitable? Although he hadn't meant it in an optimistic way.

There was a missing piece to the puzzle that Neku had hidden from. Roxas was not entirely sure he would enjoy it when he found out what, or even if it was his place to know. He didn't asked, just spent a lot of time in his dark room developing pictures of Neku, wondering if he could spot it.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

As the team continued to spread its wings, they began to see less of each other, each of their careers expanding. When Shiki hadn't seen Roxas for several weeks she headed over to the apartment to talk with him. It'd been a little over a year since he'd called her to start this thing with Neku. She knew she owed him a lot and kept up the acquaintance as faithfully as she could. She saw more of Neku, often being called in to dress him. She even got to work on a runway show because Neku was there.

Once upon a time, she'd harbored a little crush on him, but what Roxas had said to her that night, after their very first week of shoots, had stuck with her. She'd taken his warning to heart, had really looked at Neku and seen that Roxas was right. Neku was not ready to trust anyone. It became so much more important for her to earn his trust than to try to force him into a relationship.

She was successful in this venture. She was not aggressive with him, she was not false with him, and her sweet disposition won his smile and his confidence. They usually talked about work or their mutual friends. Neku complained about Roxas's habit of never doing the dishes, or praised one of Demyx's latest songs. Shiki shared what she'd seen of Axel's latest paintings or some new fashion she'd sewn and wanted to put on him.

She was here for Roxas today, knew Neku was downtown at a shoot and also knew he had been reluctant to go. She knocked on the door to the apartment, hoped Roxas wasn't in the darkroom, and was relieved when he opened the door with a smile.

He let her in, offered her coffee, but she took water instead. They settled at the kitchen table where Roxas lit up a cigarette.

"You really should quit," she noted.

"So Neku keeps telling me," Roxas answered dully.

"It's only because we worry about you." The smile she gave him was hesitant. That drew the man's attention and he raised an eyebrow curiously.

"Thanks?"

Shiki was hopeless at hiding it when something heavy weighed on her mind. Something was clearly worrying her, it had already slipped out of her in semantics.

"It's just. I guess I just wanted to know. If you knew." Shiki flushed.

"If I knew what?" Roxas never was one for these kinds of games.

She didn't speak at first. "That we," eventually, "talk about you. That Neku talks about you."

Touching as that was, they'd been living together for a while, it was hardly a surprise. "I'm sure he just bitches about the dishes I leave lying around."

"He does," Shiki nodded enthusiastically, seeing an opening to say what she needed to. "But, I think he's kind of grateful that there are little things for him to do. Like he belongs here."

Roxas stared at her. "He said that?" She shied from his scrutiny.

"Not in so many words, you know how he is," she explained carefully. "And _I_ know how he is. That's. Why I came to talk to you. To make sure you knew that, in letting him stay."

There was silence between them.

"I do now," he mused. She saw there was something distant in his expression. She was not sure if she was glad to have enlightened him. _Neku_ certainly didn't seem as if he'd wanted the man to know, but…

"I hope you'll talk to him," she murmured, gathering herself and her purse together nervously. She hadn't exactly come intending to force the issue, but it had happened anyway. She wasn't sure how to follow up such a confession with polite conversation.

Roxas saw her to the door absentmindedly and she left him with something daunting to think about.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

It wasn't until a few days later that Axel conversationally began, "Hey, Roxas," which was usually a bad sign and Roxas had the foreboding feeling that bad things and unsettling conversations came in threes. "You remember how you said you weren't gonna keep the kid locked in your apartment like Kiryu?"

Roxas looked up, knowing where this was going. "I don't keep him locked up."

Axel gave him an amused look. "You don't suggest he go out unless it's under the guise of work either."

"He doesn't want to go," Roxas shrugged, to which Axel sighed. Sometimes his friend could be so dense. Roxas had a bad habit of only paying attention to what interested him the most and would leave loose ends like a trail of lice.

"Not the point. _My_ point is, are you really going to let him sleep on your couch forever?"

Roxas fell silent. The answer should have been no, but. What else was Neku going to do? If he'd wanted to do something else, he would have. Roxas knew that Neku didn't let people tell him to do _anything_ unless he saw some benefit to it. He wasn't being forced to stay inside.

"…Have you been talking to Shiki?" Roxas wondered, after a moment.

Axel frowned. "Don't change the subject."

"No," the blonde shook his head, annoyed that Axel wasn't listening to him. "Shiki came to talk to me about the exact same thing the other day."

His friend blinked at him. "What'd she say? If she's already said it then I can cut this short, but if she had an alternative concern that's all the more reason you should pay some fucking attention to what's going on around you."

Startled by Axel's vehemence on the issue, Roxas related what Shiki had said to him. Rather than be put at ease, Axel actually continued on his tangent. Roxas had rarely seen the man so angry, he usually treated everything as some variation of his own private comedy/_Jackass 3_ ripoff. The last time Axel had been this mad, Roxas had let his cheating ex back into the house.

"It's been over a year now. Earth to Roxas," Axel jeered. "You can't just keep wandering off into your own little world. I don't know what it is about him that fascinates you so damn much. But the fact is, you've got that fucked up model living with you. He's fucked up. He's an okay kid, I guess, but you're just insulating him against reality. You do the same thing, you and your damn darkroom."

Roxas was suddenly regretful that he'd called Axel out to have coffee with him. Everyone around them was staring. God. With a best friend like Axel he shouldn't actually have hoped for anything better.

"You sound like a nagging girlfriend, Axel," Roxas replied snidely, eyebrows pinched in confusion, unsure what he really wanted to say, but not entirely willing to take such haranguing lying down.

The redhead took a deep breath, his quick mind darting behind his eyes. He had always seen things so much more clearly than Roxas. All of his worst mistakes, Axel had always been there to warn him about it beforehand. Axel had given him the brutal truth about the reality of every one of his relationships, and Roxas hadn't believed him. Yet, at the same time, only Axel got to see the furious tears of betrayal or the self-deprecating moments of failure.

"Listen to me," Axel said, earnest concern. "Because. You know what? I'm going to try to save you every time you do this shit to yourself. I'm gonna be there to put your sharp little pieces back together. But maybe this time you could just not. Okay?" He shook his head, exhaling deeply.

"God, Axel," Roxas laughed dryly, it wasn't much of a laugh at all. He dropped about ten dollars and some change on the table, grabbing Axel and pulling him towards the apartment. "Seriously, did you have to do that right there?" He couldn't actually get angry at Axel for expressing his concern, couldn't actually have expected the man to have been more contained about it either. The man was always an explosion waiting to happen.

"Yes," Axel replied, jerking his hand away to follow on his own. "You make everything so complicated. Just because you leave so much shit undone."

"I'm sorry," the photographer murmured, he sounded like he meant it, but Axel scoffed anyway.

"Yeah yeah yeah, not sorry enough."

They went to Axel's apartment, where Axel showed him several really nice prints of Neku with his artistic touch. The kid had grown small horns from his forehead. Roxas asked Axel why he felt the need to be so dramatic and Axel laughed, muttered something about the frenetic integrity of art.

"You have to admit he's a damn good model," Roxas suggested.

Axel hesitated to answer. "Yeah. I guess he is. He kind of inspires all the rest of us. I mean, I know things wouldn't be half as good as they are now if people weren't so fascinated by the fact that he didn't stay with Yoshiya's company. He could have, you know?" He was looking at his friend, actually wanting an answer to his question.

Roxas knew. Roxas remembered when he'd gotten Neku riled with a jibe. They'd been working on that fight for weeks, a sore spot that they'd both gnawed at irritably, because they were both so stubborn. Neku had snapped that he didn't suck cock for money. And everything had changed; everything Roxas had thought about Neku up to that point was changed.

Neku was such a lonely kid.

"I'll talk to him," Roxas promised.

"Good idea," Axel deadpanned. Roxas could be so thick.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

Distantly, in the back of his mind, Roxas realized that he really did have to talk to Neku. If nothing else, Axel was right about one thing. The place on his couch was never meant to be indefinite and Neku had been there for far too long. Roxas wondered how he was going to bring this up.

He had a couple of days to think about it, at least. Neku was working a set of shoots, like he was supposed to. They weren't home together for a while but as soon as Roxas got the chance he… Made a pot of really strong coffee and lit a cigarette. He watched Neku to the tunes of Jeff Healey. Roxas wasn't sure what the movie was, but it had bright blinding colors. The kid was very quiet, the coffee cradled in his thin hands, keeping them warm. Roxas let him finish one mug of coffee and get another before he took the plunge.

"Hey, have you been looking for your own place?"

He saw the way Neku stiffened, observed that he turned around to face him slowly. He didn't say anything at first, which annoyed Roxas pretty irrationally. He got up, turned off the music and the television too. Then he stood in front of the couch and let the silence settle in.

"This is great, Neku," he noted. "All this time and you can't even be _upfront_ with me, let alone polite."

The kid growled, setting the coffee cup aside. He stared at Roxas belligerently. "You could just say you want me to get the fuck out," he accused.

His words reminded Roxas of what they were really supposed to be talking about. He calmed down in increments, scratching at his hair absentmindedly before he got his mouth working again, working without added derision. He was the adult here, he tried to remind himself.

"That's not what I'm saying," he decided. "What I'm saying is." What was it? What the hell was he saying? Neku was looking at him expectantly, looked a little discomfited at the atmosphere. Roxas tried again. "Look, what Kiryu did to you should be a crime."

Neku inhaled sharply, color rising in his cheeks, wrath flaring in his eyes. Roxas stepped into his personal space, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. Neku's words died on his tongue and he shrugged out from under his touch.

"You're behind the times, Roxas," he grumbled, eyes downcast. "Pitying me is so last season."

"It's not pity, you brat," the man responded coldly, trying to rein himself in. He and Neku were so used to the fights and the jibes, but this wasn't really the place for it. They'd used their contention to dance around what was important. That wasn't what Roxas wanted now. "Damn it. I'm worried about you."

"Spare me."

"_Neku_. You cannot keep hiding behind me without telling me what it is I'm protecting you from."

Neku looked like he'd been slapped, concrete-blue eyes wide, expression vulnerable. He didn't let Roxas hold his gaze for long, curling into himself protectively. Roxas wouldn't be put off. He sat down next to the kid quietly and thought hard on where to take this next.

Neku beat him to the punch. "I. I'm afraid. I'm afraid that Joshua will tell my secret." Roxas waited, holding his breath lest he scare the kid off his confession. He almost couldn't believe he'd given in to it so quickly. Roxas had expected a fight, maybe even a physical one.

"He told me. That he knew," Neku admitted, his hands fidgeting in his lap, no longer like a peaceful bird with relaxed wings, now like an animal caught in the cage of its own bones. "If he knows, other people do too. It was stupid, the smartest thing I could have done was just disappear, but I didn't want to. I didn't want Joshua to think I was useless without him. I figured as long as your name was disguising mine it'd be okay."

Neku looked up suddenly, something desperate in his eyes. "It was stupid of me to think I could hide."

He'd said nothing concrete, all Roxas had to go on was supposition and that one piece of information Neku had never meant to give him. _I don't suck cock for money._

"Were you… before Yoshiya, were you a—"

"I was a street kid, not a prostitute," Neku snapped. "Fuck, it would have been fine if I'd just stayed nobody, but I wanted to work and buy a car and rent a house. I just wanted to be left alone, not weighted down by the government. They'd never believe I was— I don't even know if I was—"

Neku's eyes fell as he admitted it: "I… I needed a soc number and I didn't have one. I don't think I ever did. And I did more than just suck cock to get one."

He hugged himself uncomfortably and Roxas couldn't restrain himself, he wrapped the kid up in his arms. He didn't know if it would help at all and Neku was tense at first, but relaxed slowly. It was okay as long as Roxas stayed behind him and they didn't have to look at each other.

"If I get caught, or Joshua turns me in, I'll go to jail." It didn't matter why he did it, it didn't matter that he was just some abandoned kid in a city too big to care. "Identity fraud is a federal offense and there's no way to undo it now."

Roxas didn't say anything, holding all his words until he was sure Neku was done.

"You probably want me to leave now, don't you." It was the last thing Neku had to offer before hanging his head and… it occurred to Roxas that that _would_ be the best answer. It would be a huge worry off his back, because there would be almost no way to prove that hadn't been knowingly harboring an illegal resident all this time.

But he didn't really think of Neku that way. Neku was… his model, his subject. There were a million expression Roxas hadn't coaxed out of him yet, hadn't captured on film.

"Did Kiryu say he was going to out you?"

"I don't know," Neku said earnestly. He'd been so angry when Joshua had told him he was leaving; he hadn't really listened much to what he'd had to say. There was only one sentiment he still carried with him. "I never should have trusted him."

Roxas bit his tongue, but his question came out anyway. "Why did you?" Neku didn't answer, and the older man squeezed him thoughtfully, reconsidering the question. "You don't have to leave. But you can't keep hiding either."

The boy stayed silent. Roxas sighed, resting his forehead against the back of Neku's shoulder.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

They only talked a little more after that. Roxas mostly probed him delicately for details out of his childhood, wondering if there was a legal identity they could pick up in order to put all the lies behind them. Neku said he wasn't even sure he'd been born in a hospital. He said a woman had taken care of him when he was very young, noted that he didn't think she was his mother and that she'd disappeared when he was about six. Obviously, he wasn't sure how old he'd been, was really just estimating.

After she'd left, he'd simply continued on the way she'd showed him, dumpster diving and scrounging for change and visiting the shelters and soup kitchens when the weather was really bad. He recounted that he'd also spent a lot of time in the libraries where there was air condition and heating and _books_.

He was quiet after that; his back leaned comfortably against the older man's side. Their conversation stewing inside of him, Roxas told the kid to go sleep in the bed and that he would sleep on the couch tonight. Neku shook his head. He refused, brusque and decided.

Roxas brooked no argument, hauled the kid over his shoulder and carried him. He tossed Neku onto the bed and then left the room, shutting the door behind him.

He needed to think. He needed more coffee.

What the hell was he going to do?

Somewhere around midnight Roxas realized that he had to talk to Kiryu. The editor's absence from Neku's life was suspicious. Not once had he appeared at the same party or shoot or runway as Neku. For such an influential man in their line of work, this had always struck Roxas as interesting. Just as Axel had said. He'd left too much undone.

So he made a couple calls, annoyed a few acquaintances for ringing so late, and eventually got hold of Kiryu's line. Apparently he was overseas in Europe, where it was early morning and Yoshiya answered promptly.

"I wasn't expecting to hear from you ever again," the man laughed, his voice too soft and too knowing. "I know how you dislike me, and I can't think of anything that should prompt it, unless you've called to insult me."

Roxas's mouth felt unpleasantly dry. He thought about the questions Neku hadn't answered, why he'd gotten together with Yoshiya, why he'd trusted him, why Yoshiya had kept him so close for two years.

"I'm calling about Neku, actually," he said, feeling pathetic. The feeling intensified as Kiryu repeated the name as if he didn't remember who it belonged to.

"Oh," he realized after a moment. "Neku, that's right, you've been taking care of him. How is he?" His voice was as insufferably unconcerned, as ever.

"Do you intend to sell him out?" Yoshiya was silent on the line. Roxas wondered if he'd hung up, but couldn't imagine he would have done so without gloating first. It drew his nerves tight and he found himself snapping, "Answer me."

The other man laughed. "I wouldn't do that to him."

"You'd just drop him on his ass."

More silence, then, "That wasn't intentional. I didn't think he would forsake the apartment and the money I gave him."

"Who else knows?" Roxas asked through grit teeth.

"Oh, no one," Yoshiya answered airily. "The investigator, but as far as I know I paid him enough to stay quiet." He seemed to consider this for a moment before wondering, "Has it caught up with him already?"

"No," Roxas replied, surprised. "I'm just. Wondering where the loose ends are."

"He just told you then?" Yoshiya sounded hurt. That was the biggest surprise of all. "And you want to save him? Your heroics are very touching."

"Fuck you," the photographer retorted shortly, annoyed by the man's mocking tone. "If you were playing out your messiah complex on him, that's your own fucking sickness. Don't put it on me."

Yoshiya hesitated, but eventually he said very softly, "I suppose. I… think that is the end of our conversation, Roxas. However, please tell him that if he ever needs money he can come to me."

"No. He won't want it." Roxas bared his teeth even though the man couldn't see; it came through his voice anyway.

Delicately, Yoshiya reworded his offer: "If he needs money, you may contact me for it."

Roxas hung up then, clutched the phone in his hand for a moment before he threw it against the wall.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

He and Neku began a strange dance of trying to pretend nothing had changed. Shiki knew better immediately, could hear the change in Neku's voice and the words he chose to use. Axel probed every day wanting to know if Roxas had taken care of his business or not, and did not seem all that satisfied when Roxas said that he'd cleaned things up with the kid.

Roxas felt out of control. No, he hadn't quite fixed things and he felt the temptation to just leave things alone and wait for the inevitable shit storm. He found himself hanging around the apartment as much as Neku, unwilling to face Axel for another round of criticism.

So he did what he'd always done in such situations: he got angry and took a lot of pictures.

The anger manifested itself in forcing Neku to go out of the apartment. They went to the park a lot and ate out at little restaurants almost every night. It was a token effort, representing something larger than neither of them was quite willing to face yet.

Roxas just took pictures and Neku let him, meeting the lens head-on whenever the older man would point it at him. There was challenge and confusion in his blue-grey eyes. Roxas could see all the hard edges of it as the sheets came up in the chemicals.

What was he going to do? Give up his bed indefinitely? He skirted around the idea of sharing the bed with him. He skirted around the idea of grabbing Neku and running.

He was in the midst of mulling over these thoughts for the millionth time when Neku finally came looking for him. He wasn't the only one affected by their revelations and for all of Neku's misanthropic reactions, there was a point when talking to walls stopped being an excuse.

"Roxas?" he called as he pushed past the rubber flaps. His eyes adjusting slowly. The photographer did not respond immediately, was bent over one of the baths, moving shots around curiously. Neku came up behind him and touched his shoulder, making him pay attention. The older man turned to face him. The low lighting made it difficult for either of them to see the other's expression. Maybe that was a godsend.

"Why don't you just go digital like the rest of the world?" Neku wondered. It wasn't why he'd come in here, but it worked well enough, was just argumentative enough to seem natural.

Roxas moved to the low metal sink to rinse his hands before answering. "Because I like watching the prints develop. It's like watching something bloom."

Neku looked around. Most of the pictures hanging to dry were of him. He wasn't entirely surprised, but it was still… kind of nice. To think someone thought he had worth. He bit back that feeling, remembered where it had gotten him before. He stopped looking at the shots and returned his gaze to Roxas. The blonde was watching him intently. He spent a lot of time in here, Neku wondered if his eyes were used to the low amber-colored lighting. Wondered if Roxas could see him.

"I just wanted to make sure you hadn't died back here," Neku said, felt like someone else was controlling his mouth, wiping his mind clean of all other thoughts: why he'd come in here, what he'd wanted. He was turning to leave again without making any of it known and he'd only managed to turn before Roxas grabbed his wrist.

He tensed and tried to throw him off but Roxas was there, was not to be ignored. His grip was too tight on Neku's thin wrist.

"I don't know what you want," Roxas said bluntly, felt the truth of it welling up in his chest painfully. "I don't know what will help."

Neku was very still in the darkness, as if he could disappear into it if he just stopped breathing. Pieces of his own face shown luminously throughout the room, bathed in red and white. He tried not to look at them, but there they were.

Roxas and Joshua were different. The way they treated him was different. He'd looked like a doll in Kiryu's pictures, had been treated a bit like one and in painful retrospect it wasn't that surprising Yoshiya had grown bored over time. He looked different when Roxas was behind the camera, maybe a little bit like a wounded animal, maybe a bruised flower. Roxas was never careful with him, never flirting or manipulative with him.

Neku pushed forward and kissed him clumsily. He didn't let Roxas respond before he fled the darkroom, unmindful of the light or the pictures.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

Neku wanted to tell Shiki what he had done. He couldn't stand the idea of having to face Roxas after doing something so irrevocably stupid. He knew how weak he'd made himself look and then there was always _Axel_ to contend with. He'd always gotten the feeling that Axel thought he was a waste of skin. The man had always been far too ready to agree that Roxas' ideas weren't the best. Yet he always did so while looking at the photographer with affection, like he was protecting him. It seemed like Roxas returned that look more often than not and Neku—

God he was so _stupid_. He fled the apartment and put in a call to call Shiki. She seemed surprised, rightly so, he never called her. She said she was at a shoot and couldn't get away for several hours but she would—

"It's fine," Neku cut her off. "I'll… see you later."

He went to Demyx instead. Although Demyx's role in the team had been minor, his budding acquaintanceship was a comfort, Neku thought. The man had been doing his hair and sharing his music with Neku for over a year now. He was sure he could rely on him to chatter away in his usual happy manner.

He didn't disappoint, looking up brightly as the model entered. "Hey cutie, you don't have an appointment today."

Neku shook his head silently. Demyx pursed his lips, coming around the front desk to herd Neku into one of the back rooms. "Fighting with our erstwhile hero again?" he wondered, trying to make himself sound playful. As often as Roxas and Neku quarreled, Neku never reacted this way. Usually, he was willing to carp about the fight, but today the kid even paled slightly at his inquiry. Demyx decided he wouldn't be pursuing that line of questioning any further.

"I was thinking you could dye my hair," Neku responded instead, reaching up to touch his hair nervously. Demyx smiled and ruffled his head viciously.

"Yeah, sure," he agreed.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

Roxas thought about running straight to Axel, but decided, as he usually did when a problem presented itself, to deal with it himself. He did, however, brew a pot of coffee, crack a pack of cigarettes and get hold of Axel via webcam. They didn't really talk much through the camera, but Roxas could watch Axel at his desk while he worked.

When they had gone to separate colleges it had been a quintessential part of their friendship. Less so now that they both had cars and careers and lived fifteen minutes from one another.

They sat quietly on their internet connection for nearly an hour, Roxas thought about reading the newspaper of something, but ended up just sitting and smoking.

"You know," Axel voiced, eventually, without looking up, "I can hear you. It's hard to quit when I got Chainsmoker McGee on the other end of the line."

"You don't really want to quit, Axel," Roxas responded.

The redhead glanced at the camera dryly. "My lungs say otherwise."

They smiled at each other, and only a best friend would notice the haggard distance in Roxas's expression from across the grainy webfeed. He didn't push. He'd already pushed enough recently and knew Roxas would shove back without a second thought if he overstepped himself much more. He knew from experience, knew that Roxas wasn't someone he could save. Stubborn little shit of a kid, and they said _he_ was the one always making trouble.

Axel held up the piece he was working on. It was the outline of an ink, bold splashes with surprisingly delicate shimmers. Roxas smiled, collecting his thoughts.

"The kid is really paranoid of the government," he said, at last.

Axel nodded, putting his piece back down, taking his pens to it in harsh strokes. "Kid is paranoid of people. Government is just a big group of people."

Roxas considered this. He knew it was more than that, but the insight still pulled the picture of Neku into clearer focus.

"Yeah, I guess," he agreed.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

Neku met Shiki for dinner that night, his hair a lighter shade of burnt-orange, cropped shorter to his head, the lines even and off his forehead, no longer crowding his eyes. It was a cleaner look, made Neku seem a little bit older, made his skin look brighter and let his cheekbones really shine through.

"You look great," she crooned as they got their table. He scratched at his hair nervously, it was shorter than he'd intended but it wasn't so bad. He'd kind of fallen asleep in Demyx's chair after the man had washed his hair. Demyx had taken certain liberties with him.

"Uh," he searched for the words. "Thanks."

She beamed at him. "What prompted the change?" She hoped it was Roxas, she hoped they had talked, was sure they had but she'd been waiting for the ripples to start taking effect.

Neku looked down at his hands, as if the answers were writ into his skin. "I was thinking of getting my own place," he decided.

"What?" Shiki blinked. She assumed the worst, "I didn't think your arguments with Roxas were that bad."

"They aren't," he assured her, shaking his head. "But, I mean, I can't sleep on his couch forever."

Shiki bit her lower lip, reading something else in his expression. Regret, sadness, longing. So lonely. She wished he would smile.

"Did he ask you to leave?"

He didn't answer; the waiter appeared with drinks and appetizers. Neku busied himself with them. She just watched him, wondering what he was really going to do.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

Roxas was waiting in the living room when Neku came back, it was late but between the coffee and the cigarettes, Roxas could have waited all night. Neku shied away from being caught in his gaze as soon as he walked through the door. He'd always thought Roxas's eyes were a little too intense, cold and bright and deep blue.

Neku swallowed nervously. "Up to a pack a day yet?"

Roxas stubbed out the cigarette, he got up from the table and crowded Neku back against the door. His hands, always a little dry, kind of knobby, settled easily on Neku's shoulders as he pressed their mouths together.

Neku turned his face away from him, felt the breath on his cheek instead. "I'm not doing this again," he voiced, made himself sound hard and determined. "I'm not selling myself to you."

The man smiled faintly. "I'm glad, because I'm not looking to buy," he answered, resting his cheek against Neku's temple, his nose nestled against the fresh clean scent of Neku's hair.

"W-what about Axel?" the kid asked, sounding like he almost didn't want to bring it up.

Roxas straightened to look at him. "What about Axel?"

"I guess, I kind of thought he—"

"No," Roxas cut him off, tussling his hair, noticing for the first time that it had been changed. He liked it. "Axel likes tits too much to be interested in me. I'm sure if I was a chick he wouldn't have any second thoughts, but I'm not. His loss."

Neku flushed, looked embarrassed and a little ashamed. "What about me then? You could go to jail too."

"Yeah," Roxas agreed. He leant back to look at Neku's face better. "But I've been thinking about a few things," he confessed.

He held Neku close to his chest as he spoke, heard the gasp of surprise as he leveled his proposal. Neku clung to him then, slim fingers fisted into his shirt front. Eventually, Roxas steered him to bed. While Neku slept peacefully, he stared at the ceiling and made plans.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

**WHY DOES TOMORROW COME?  
午前十時半　渋谷区　一年後**

Neku woke slowly as the hand trailed up his thigh. The thin early morning sunlight that came under the slats of the blinds fell across his face and chest. He threw his arm over his eyes to shield them and watched as Roxas crawled onto the bed over him.

"Are you just getting in?" Neku wondered curiously.

"_Hai_," Roxas agreed, his mouth following a trail from Neku's hip up his chest. "You know how people are here, don't go out drinking with them and it's like you've insulted their honor."

"Meet anyone nice?" Neku wondered, swatting his mouth away irritably.

"Kitaniji, Megumi, it is a pleasure to meet you, Roxas-_san_," the man responded in a fair imitation of the producer's deep voice and strange way of speaking that was impeccably formal but unfailingly relaxed. He then returned to bothering the body underneath him, touching and kissing.

Neku rolled out from under him stubbornly. "Shiki wants to meet at the train station in like half an hour, I don't have time for you. Go to sleep. Or a shower first, you reek of cigarettes and beer."

Roxas lounged in the bed listlessly. It had been a long night, he could have just fallen asleep, but he rolled over to watch Neku get dressed.

"How's that boyfriend of hers?"

"Who, Hayner?" Neku shrugged, she didn't think the guy was worth Shiki's time, but she assured him the guy was nice. He pulled on some clothes absentmindedly. Shiki had infiltrated his closet, he ended up wearing colors and designs he never would have chosen for himself, but she still dressed him better than anyone else did. He slipped into a pair of jeans and a white tank top with a loud design. "He won't be there."

Roxas smiled. "Boyfriend doesn't want to go shopping with the girls?"

"Fuck you," Neku answered pertly, flipping him the bird. "I'll be back around five, be awake then."

"Are we going out tomorrow?"

Neku raised an eyebrow, his expression witheringly sarcastic. "We'll have to see how tonight plays out."

Roxas smiled sleepily and waved as the model left the building.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

Roxas was woken up at about four o'clock by a call from one obnoxious hacker by the name of Sho Minamimoto. They discussed a few monetary matters, Roxas redirected him with Yoshiya Kiryu's phone number and then they hung up. Roxas got up then, he took a shower because Neku was right, he smelled like he'd spent all night in a bar, and he had. When Megumi Kitaniji and Xemnas, two of the top producers in Japan asked you out for a drink, you went.

Neku would just have to come with him next time.

Kitaniji had asked for a sample from his personal portfolio, so while he waited for Neku to come home, Roxas went out into the living room and thought about which pictures to send. He flipped on his laptop as he went and got the webfeed up.

Axel was working on the other end. He didn't look up when the camera flashed to announce the other man's arrival on the scene.

"What are you doing up at this hour?" Roxas called as he sat down in front of the computer with a folder and some coffee.

Axel muttered something about the frenetic integrity of art, his favorite excuse for most things. Roxas called a bullshit foul on him and Axel looked up with a languid smile.

"Me and some paintings are gonna be joining your cute little cousin in Barcelona next month, gotta get them done."

His friend refrained from complaining, Axel had his own career to look out for. However, "You need to hurry up and come visit us again." It had been approximately two months since the last one.

"Yeah, yeah," Axel agreed mockingly. "I know I got partial custody of the kids, honey. I'll be in after Spain. Hell, it's half the trip."

They smiled at each other, and then each fell into their work, occasionally cracking jokes, mostly working in silence. Axel could tell when Neku came home because Roxas looked up from his efforts, something a lot like surprise on his face before he hurriedly reached forward and turned the entire laptop off.

Axel rolled his eyes from across the world and thought about getting in bed finally.

* * *

_D&G_

* * *

Neku and Shiki took to life in Shibuya like fish to water. Neku loved wandering the crowded streets where everything was so teeming with fashion that no one even noticed him most of the time. There had been a few 'd met The Prince inside Cadoi's Darling Designs and Eiji had absolutely recognized Neku as one of his favorite models. He'd made a scene and drawn a whole crowd, which had made Neku desperately uncomfortable.

Shiki just laughed.

Nothing could faze her as long as she had Shibuya. The life and vibrancy enchanted her and she confessed to Neku that although she'd followed after them because of a job offer, she hoped to stay and open up her own store somewhere in the district. Secretly, Neku hoped to give up modeling and help her with that one day.

For now they just wandered a lot, looked at the newest and most expensive clothes, admired the art and music and games of the city. And wore strange and fabulous clothing.

Sometimes, it was amazing to Roxas to see the clothing Shiki could convince Neku into sometimes.

Roxas thought he liked the skirt though.

"Did… you really walk home like that?"

Neku canted his hips. It didn't look that feminine on him, the coppery colored hair on his legs was noticeable, he was clearly a young man in a skirt, but it still looked pretty damn good on him. He frowned at Roxas's question.

"And what if I did?"

Roxas licked his lips, deciding that was a trick question. "What else did you buy?"

Neku smiled secretively and set the small bags down. He never returned with as many purchases as Shiki, was more conservative with his money after too long living with none. He pulled the white athletic tank top off first, exposing his slim body and the jut of his hips. That red-scrap of a skirt hung low on him, it had a black waistband, the zipper concealed in the folds on one side. There was easily three inches shown beneath Neku's navel. Roxas was awfully fond of the smattering of hair there. Neku pulled out a shirt, chocolaty brown and off-white stripes, big sandalwood buttons and a smartly pressed collar. The sleeves ended in cuffs just below his elbows.

He fastened the two buttons over his bellybutton and went after the zipper on his skirt, it dropped to the floor and he stepped out of it. He had to shake the fabric off his shoes, a pair of darkly colored ducks, slim city sneakers. Shiki had picked them out because she said they helped make his legs look longer.

Roxas had wondered what the model was wearing under that skirt and got his answer then. Small cotton briefs, the line of Neku's cock cradled in the fabric was impossibly clear to Roxas and he snapped out of his thought as Neku bent down to pull out another piece of clothing. It was a sharp white skirt that was mostly straight but for the slight flare where it ended over the knees. He slipped into it, turned slightly, giving only a passing intimation of a fashion show.

"That's enough, come here," Roxas murmured. Neku gave him a dry look and gathered up his things before heading into the bedroom. Roxas followed after him doggedly. "I don't think we need to go out tomorrow," he noted, catching up with the younger man. When he put his arms around his waist, Neku jerked out of his grasp in order to continue putting away the few things he'd bought.

When Roxas got in his way again, he pushed the blonde down onto the bed and told him to just sit and wait a minute. Roxas obliged with a smile. The smile grew into a grin as Neku approached and crawled up into his lap. The wide bottom of the skirt settled over his spread thighs. He looked down at Roxas.

"No, I don't think we need to go out tomorrow," he agreed, he brought Roxas's hands to his chest and leaned into him.

He pushed their mouths together firmly. His phone was ringing on the dresser, but he ignored it as he licked the taste of ash and coffee from the photographer's mouth.

One year of freedom. They didn't need to go out to celebrate.

* * *

**Standard Disclaimers.**


End file.
